Activism Hasn’t Been Effective for Decades. What Happened?

A postmortem.

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Once upon a time, American activists used to actually achieve things. Protestors and campaigners helped build the pressure to abolish slavery, secure women the right to vote, pass labor laws, and establish civil rights. They helped end the war in Vietnam, institute environmental and consumer protections, and pass the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. In the words of the education reformer and abolitionist Horace Mann, each of these movements “won some victory for humanity.” But those days are history. Anyone comparing past generations to the modern era is struck by just how ineffective activists have been over the past 25 years. With the lone and notable exception of same-sex marriage, not a single major activist movement in the 21st century has won anything worth a damn. Oftentimes, they’ve only hurt their own cause.

Anti-Iraq War protestors did nothing to hasten its end. Occupy Wall Street did nothing at all. The Million Mom March, March For Our Lives, and myriad other gun control movements have not led to substantive gun reform. #MeToo brought a smattering of criminals to justice before turning into a moral panic that poisoned gender relations for a generation. Black Lives Matters set American cities ablaze while conning donors into funding lavish mansions. Defund the Police led to a spike in crime and a right-wing backlash. Climate activism’s alienating publicity stunts have rendered its impact progress-neutral. Stop the Steal didn’t prevent Joe Biden from taking office in 2020, it just weakened US democracy and tarnished American conservatism. Similarly, trans activism translated into a straightforward backslide in public opinion, and anti-trans activism has succeeded merely in further radicalizing the political left. Meanwhile, anti-vaxxers changed no policies — they simply raised their own mortality rates. And the pro-Palestine movement, far from stopping the war in Gaza, has managed only to demolish any distinction there once was between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism while partially instigating an authoritarian government crackdown on higher education.

To quote Andy Kaufman, “Hard to get happy after that one.” The question is, what in the world has gone wrong with American activist movements?

Looking at the highlights of the 19th and 20th centuries versus the 21st, one might conclude that the issue at hand is that all of the low-hanging fruit has been picked. The most worthy and/or attainable goals have already been achieved, leaving only largely unworthy or unattainable ones. And yet, the before-times had their fair share of causes that were as deeply misguided as they were audaciously ambitious. The eugenics movement passed laws around the country that led to the sterilization of thousands. The temperance movement had the Constitution amended to ban alcohol. And the Moral Majority influenced policy across the nation restricting sex ed and the teaching of evolution, and passing anti-LGBT legislation. The merit of a cause and its effectiveness are not as closely connected as we might wish. So while sensible people should be glad that we have not outlawed vaccines or abolished the police, we cannot attribute the wrongness of these causes to be the primary driver of their failure, or the failure of modern activism more broadly.

One clear factor is the climate of political hyper-partisanship. Americans are more divided than they have been in decades. As a result, neither party wants to work together, neither ever has the numbers to unilaterally pass their agenda, and tribal guilt-by-association dissuades activists of different camps from reaching across the aisle to make common cause.

Then there’s the Internet. With public attention now pulled in every direction and stretched so thin, sustaining attention on a cause becomes more difficult. And while at a glance social media might appear to be a tailor-made tool to boost activism by reaching vast numbers of people instantly, it only ends up spurring hashtag slacktivism over substantive real-world campaigning while making everyone more jaded, cynical, and apathetic. This isn’t helped by the fact that the corporate world has become heavily involved in cause advocacy, smearing what George Carlin once described as their “advertising feces” all over the activist landscape in the eternal hunt for good PR. But in so doing, they tarnish the credibility of every cause they glom on to. The attention economy also creates perverse media incentives that prioritize doing whatever it takes to grab eyeballs and create engagement, usually in the form of viral but ineffectual stunts that provoke outrage.

The most consequential impact of the Internet is how it highlights, amplifies, and immortalizes every activist misstep and blunder. Gather thousands of people in public to rally for some cause, and there will always be at least a few who misbehave, or hold offensive signs, or say something truly vile. Before the Internet and especially social media, a good number of these incidents either flew under the radar and went uncovered, or were soon forgotten and not easily retrieved. Now, every misstep goes viral, the affiliation of bad actors is vehemently disputed, and people end up arguing about everything but the original cause. This means that modern activist movements require a much higher standard of conduct, discipline, and organization than their predecessors. All things being equal, that puts them at a colossal disadvantage. Adding insult to injury, modern activists are, in fact, far less disciplined and organized than those of generations past.

21st-century activist movements are, above everything, performative. They stage wild disruptions, grab headlines, inflame emotions, trend hashtags, and strike heroic poses while role-playing as romanticized revolutionaries. But by and large, they’re driven more by in-group purity and the thrill of it all than by the desire to actually affect any kind of measurable, concrete change in the world. Oftentimes, these movements have vague and ill-defined goals, no path toward achieving them, no plan for the day after if they do, and nothing in the way of specifics or thought-through logistics. What was the goal of the Occupy movement? Alas, “Screw Wall Street, man!” is not a goal around which an effective activist cause can be marshaled.

Modern movements also tend to eschew centralized leadership and hierarchy, preventing effective organization and allowing anyone, be they an overzealous supporter or a hostile infiltrator, to act in the cause’s name in ways that embarrass it. This is what we saw with BLM and #MeToo. They became decentralized mass movements that descended from noble causes into cudgels for the vengeful and unwell. And perhaps that goes further in explaining the fall of effective cause advocacy than anything else. For many activists in the present era, activism is less about the cause itself and more about serving as a kind of replacement for religion, community, or psychological help. And it’s rather difficult to win some victory for humanity when you’re just a lost and broken soul looking for love, camaraderie, and meaning in all the wrong places.

So what the hell is wrong with modern activism? A better question is “what isn’t?”

See also: “Living Well Is the Best Activism”

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